


epilogue

by theseaofglass



Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-25
Updated: 2015-03-25
Packaged: 2018-03-19 13:08:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3611205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theseaofglass/pseuds/theseaofglass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>everything you never wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	epilogue

**Author's Note:**

> i make a lot of wishes, and only the worst ones come true. but they're unnecessary things, i know that too.

earlier today, ryan ross threw his clock out the window. 

his only explanation for his boss was, _i’ve got a fucking apple watch now, what the fuck. i don’t need that._

it was better than singing, _i’m every cliche, i just simply do it best_ , which perhaps was the more honest answer. 

his boss sent him home for the day. 

ryan ross has been living as a parody of the person who should have been sitting at this desk for about eight months now. this takes precisely the same amount of effort as actually being that guy, but gives him much more capacity for scorn. scorn shows up well on ryan’s face. 

* * *

ryan ross works as a designer for a software consultancy in san francisco. people pay his company exorbitant amounts of money to develop apps for them. ryan spends his days making sure that those apps don’t look like shit and yelling at programmers when they don’t follow the labelled designs he sends them. like, when he says forty pixels, he means forty pixels. they don’t understand his aesthetic at all. 

it’s a good job. ryan makes good money. his team appreciates him. the clients love his designs. he can afford the god awful rent on his apartment. he was able to buy the set of oversize wine glass he wanted. he filled them up with wine and left them where they would trap the city lights in their red depths and didn’t drink a drop. 

now out in the bright city day, the strange work day afternoon, the last thing ryan feels like doing is going home. he walks a block to a little city park, complete with a colorful geometric statue, and sits on a bench not currently occupied by a homeless person. 

the thing is, it’s so much better than vegas and ryan doesn’t know why he’s still not over himself. but, there’s a smashed up clock in the alley that can attest to the fact that he is very definitively not over himself. 

* * *

it’s too windy out and none of ryan’s coats matched his vest so he didn’t wear one this morning. he only stays in the park about fifteen minutes before he heads for starbucks. this too feels like defeat, but at least that’s familiar. 

the barista has lips that are, in ryan’s personal opinion, too big for his face, and he sings ryan’s order back at him to be sure that yes, ryan did really want a venti skinny soy vanilla doubleshot latte. yes, ryan did. 

“yeah, uh, thanks brandon,” ryan says as he catches his change. 

the guy looks down at his name tag and back up to ryan. “brendon,” he says, like he didn’t just totally misspell  _ryan_ on the cup. 

ryan awkwardly shrugs, and drops the quarters in the tip jar before shuffling off. 

when he gets his latte, it says RYAN in perfect handwriting, like some girls have, and there’s a heart drawn at the end. 

* * *

ryan is twenty-four, and it feels impossible. too much time. he feels like the minutes at the end of a youtube track, silence ticking on and on, and shit, it’s not like it was before, there’s less blood and bottles now and ryan is desperate but he knows it’s nothing like that and if nothing saved him when he was suffering high school and home, nothing is going to save him now when the only thing he suffers is boredom and an empty apartment. 

he stays too late at the starbucks and brendon starts stacking chairs on the tables around him. 

ryan’s not doing anything. he’s scribbling in the notebook he keeps in his leather computer bag, imprinted with his company’s logo on the front. he’s not really writing. the last five lines just say, _i hate my life i hate my life i hate my life and brendon’s glasses too_ (ryan’s decided red isn’t really the barista’s color). 

“so,” brendon says. “we close at seven.” 

“yeah,” ryan says. he bites his pen cap. 

“It’s seven twenty-five,” brendon says. 

ryan checks his apple watch. “oh,” he says. “so it is.”

“so,” brendon says. everyone else is gone, even the redhead that was helping brendon make the drinks earlier. ryan really is amazed he doesn’t get mugged more often, with his powers of observation.

“yeah,” ryan says, stuffing his notebook into his bag. “man, i mean, sorry.”

“no, not at all,” brendon says. “tell me something. do you smoke?”

ryan hasn’t since college. he also doesn’t talk to people. “yup,” he says. maybe brendon’s lips are okay after all. 

* * *

they step out into the alley, and brendon locks the starbucks. he passes a cigarette to ryan and then lights it for him a second later. ryan leans back against the brick and looks up up at the buildings. 

this, of course, is when ryan folds over on himself. 

"woah, i knew it,” brendon says, crouching down on the alley sidewalk next to ryan. “you are so not okay.”

“jesus,” ryan says. “it’s just my stomach.” he has a sensitive stomach, especially when he’s had nothing to eat all day but a latte. he’s been feeling sick a lot lately. 

“whatever, you have no idea how many breakdowns happen in starbucks,” brendon says, patting ryan’s back, “and you look like someone killed your grandma or something.” his face changes. “oh shit, wait, no one killed your grandma, right?”

“not recently,” ryan says. 

brendon looks relieved. “okay, awesome. my manager tells me all the time i have to be more careful about what i say.”

ryan shuffles over to a crate and sits down. “i just thought there’d be more than this, you know?” he says. 

“fuck you said this wasn’t a breakdown,” brendon says, straightening up and flicking ash off the end of his cigarette. 

“if this is a breakdown,” ryan says, resting his face against his knees, “it’s going on five years now.” 

brendon sighs and hands ryan another cigarette. his first is an ashy stub, beginning to burn his writing hand. “okay. tell me what you wanted to be when you grew up,” he says. 

“playing therapist?” ryan says. 

“i wanted to be a model,” brendon says, nodding, “i have the facial structure for it, see?” he turns his face different ways, catching the streetlight. “but i was too short. so now i work here.”

ryan casts a critical eye over brendon. “you are kind of short,” he says. also brendon doesn’t seem to have much fashion sense. at least not by ryan’s standards.

“ryan, friend, i think you might be a hypocrite,” brendon says. 

“i wanted to be david bowie in labyrinth,” ryan says. the girl goes back to earth in the end, but david bowie doesn’t. 

“you’d look good in eyeliner,” brendon offers. 

“thanks,” ryan says. his stomach doesn’t exactly feel better but he can deal with it now. 

“i have to go now,” brendon says. he looks apologetic. “i’ve got a train to catch now, you know.”

“oh, yeah,” ryan says, fumbling to a standing position. he sticks his hand out, out of pure office reflex. 

brendon looks at it, laughs, and pulls ryan in for a hug. “hey,” he says, in ryan’s ear. “i can’t change childhood traumas or whatever, but i work here tuesday through saturday. just saying. if you want coffee again.”

“i probably will,” ryan says. 

he gets a second of grin from brendon, blinding and real, before the other boy turns away, and walks out of the alley. 

* * *

ryan doesn’t get a new clock. he doesn’t have to pay for the old one though. 

ryan rips out the stitches holding his world together and lets it fall to pieces, be trampled on and forgotten. he does this, and goes to work the next morning. 

it’s funny, because he of all people should not have been expecting the world to be kind. it makes too much sense, and so he lets himself be nonsense. he goes back to visit brendon the barista the next day. 

and everything that came before ends. 


End file.
